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Tuesday, January 08, 2013

Best Posts Of A Conservative Teacher For 2012

...The lecture notes that I am looking at that were delivered by the liberal teacher in my school are one-sided liberal spin. They begin by pointing out that the Cold War wasn't really a war- that the United States was just scared of losing its position of power in the world and so reacted to an emerging Soviet Union by pretending that there was some sort of Cold War we were engaged in. The definition of 'Red Scare' according to this liberal teacher was 'the unjustified fear of communism in the United States'. The teacher then goes on to attack McCarthy- "known as a lazy and corrupt politician," "played up imaginary fears of communists to gullible public," and "made up evidence of spies to get re-elected."

I'm not making this up folks- this is an example of how a historical topic like McCarthyism can be spun to students who don't know any different, and then years later they will believe the lies because they don't know any better and they were thoroughly indoctrinated. And this is a single day lecture in a single class- imagine every day, many classes, for 12 years, and you can see how America ended up where it is today (morally, creatively, and financially bankrupt)...Fall of Roman Empire from Peak Teaches America Lessons:

...we can see that around 100 AD Rome began to 'collapse'- as defined as a progressing downward trajectory of these factors from a peak. The reason for this is that at this point in time Rome began to live beyond its means and the costs of adding complexity to society began to be greater than the benefits that society saw...

...Ugo Bardi, the professor of physical chemistry, is suggesting is the cause for Rome's (and our own) decline- too much bureaucracy, too high taxes, too much centralized control over people, and short-sighted economic policies. In the end, as Rome collapsed, it worsened its situation by putting in place more bureaucracy and more taxes- Obamacare...

McCarthy made baseless charges of communism against political enemies to cover up for his alcoholism and lack of accomplishments as a Senator. He finally went a bridge to far when he accused generals in the U.S. Army of aiding and abetting Communist.

Edward R. Murrow's famous "See It Now" program devoted 30 minutes to showing all the falsehoods and lies McCarthy used against those he deemed a danger to the country.

His famous envelope from "I have here in my hand an envelope with the names of 87 Communists in the U.S. State Department!" was always empty, and depending on the location of the speech, the number changed.

He was a liar, an alcoholic, and an embarrassment to the United States of America.

According to recently declassified data- the bulk of it from the Soviets and only being translated and analyzed in the last several years- McCarthy has access to information that was not available to others and virtually every single person who he accused of being a communist did in fact have ties to communism.

McCarthy did in fact have a list in his possession when he set forth some 70-plus security cases on the floor of the Senate in February 1950. Subsequently he provided their names in writing to the Senate committee that looked into the matter, plus a supplementary list of 2-dozen other suspects for a total of more than 100 names presented to the Senate.

McCarthy has personal problems- as most of our politicians do- but that really doesn't matter when we're talking about the historical record of accusing communists and if he was accurate or not.

For example, for many years people maintained that the Rosenbergs were victims of a 'McCarthyism witch hunt', but newly declassified documents (Verona Intercepts) show that the Rosenbergs were in fact communists and correctly fingered by McCarthy.

Teaching this era is complicated and there is a lot in here that should be critically examined from both the left and right. The comments above- the sort of uncritical personal attacks that perpetuate myth- represent failures of teachers to teach this era accurately and that needs to be changed.